Trujillo willing to spend on the bush

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Telstra is prepared to spend more on services in the bush if it
can make money as well, chief executive Sol Trujillo says.

Asked if Telstra was prepared to increase its spend on the bush,
Trujillo said today: "If it can provide more services and help
businesses out here in the bush I think it makes sense.

"But we are also looking at a way where we can do it and make
money doing it."

Trujillo also said talks he had yesterday with National
Party leader Mark Vaile and Transport Minister Warren Truss
were constructive.

"I don't consider the conversations I've had as fights," he said
of the meeting yesterday in Lismore, NSW.

"What I'm trying to do is help expand some of the conversations
so it is not just short term solutions that we come up with, but
longer term."

During yesterday's meeting, Vaile reinforced the need for a
post-privatised Telstra to maintain a basic level of service in the
bush.

The Nationals have been disturbed by warnings that it will be
impossible for Telstra to sustain in the long term a standard level
of service in the bush, known as the Universal Service Obligation
(USO).

The coalition partner is demanding the Federal Government set up
a $A2 billion trust fund to fund improvements to telco's services
in the bush after it is fully privatised.

"I believe the future fund notion is an important notion for the
future of Australia," Trujillo said.

Today he visited a cattle property in Blackall, 900km west of
Brisbane, owned by the family of Telstra Country Wide chairwoman
Jenny Russell.

He was shown examples of new technology being used in rural
areas and watched five-year-old Aaron Russell participate in prep
school over the internet.

Earlier in Canberra, Queensland Senator Barnaby Joyce said
Telstra's service obligations in the bush were not negotiable
despite comments from Trujillo that Australia's telecoms regulatory
regime was obsolete.

Trujillo said yesterday that regulations were too costly and did
not encourage new technologies and new services for customers.

Trujillo, an American recently appointed to head the
telecommunications giant, said Australia's regulatory regime
contained rules that belonged to the last century.

But Senator Joyce said today that the rules governing Telstra's
service delivery in the bush - known as the universal service
obligation (USO) - were not up for discussion.

As such, Senator Joyce said Trujillo's comments that the USO was
costly and a burden rang alarm bells.

"It does because the universal service obligation is one of the
pillars of our resolution that was passed unanimously here in
Queensland," the new Nationals Senator told the Nine Network.

"I know Sol's sort of still finding his feet in the job, but
it's absolutely imperative that he understands that we want parity
of service, parity of price, into the future.

"Communications is a right of people through this vast nation of
ours ... and we know that there is a cost of putting that service
in, but it's part of the job of government, it's part of the job of
Telstra. They've got an obligation to do it and we intend to keep
them to it."